Broad smoking ban sought in housing

HEALTH Assemblyman seeks ban in apartments and condos

Updated 10:56 pm, Monday, March 11, 2013

Photo: James Tensuan, The Chronicle

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Aaron Haning (left), who lives with parents Cynthia Haning and Edward Escobar and sister Hanna Haning in a Concord condo, says smoke from their next-door neighbors affects his allergies. "I have itchy eyes a lot during the nighttime," says Aaron, 9. less

Aaron Haning (left), who lives with parents Cynthia Haning and Edward Escobar and sister Hanna Haning in a Concord condo, says smoke from their next-door neighbors affects his allergies. "I have itchy eyes a ... more

Photo: James Tensuan, The Chronicle

Broad smoking ban sought in housing

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People living in townhouses, condominiums and other attached units would be prohibited from smoking indoors under a ban proposed by a state lawmaker - the most sweeping antismoking legislative proposal in the country.

The law would ban all tobacco smoking inside any multiunit residence - apartments, condominiums, duplexes, townhouses. Single-family detached homes are not included as they don't share walls or ventilation systems. Marijuana smoking is not addressed either. Outdoor smoking would be permitted in designated areas at least 20 feet away from housing units.

The rationale is that when neighbors light up, the smoke filters through ventilation systems, pipes, walls and ceilings, electrical sockets and even cracks in plaster, creating a health hazard.

"Home is where you should have the right to breathe clean air," said Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, who introduced the legislation, AB746, noting that a third of Californians live in multiunit complexes.

Allergies, itchy eyes

For Aaron Haning and his family, the ban can't come soon enough. As soon as they get home from school, Aaron, 9, and his sister, Hanna, 11, can smell cigarette smoke in their Concord condo - even though they live in a nonsmoking household.

"Our walls are very thin, and it comes through from the next-door neighbors," Aaron said. "It affects my allergies. I have itchy eyes a lot during the nighttime.

"The smell is terrible," he said. "I can't even open my bedroom windows because smoke would come in."

His parents say secondhand smoke from their neighbor exacerbated Aaron's respiratory issues and helped caused a recent bout of bronchitis that required an emergency room trip. Although they've asked the property manager and the condo association for help, "we got bounced all over the place, and no one wanted to help," said their father, Edward Escobar.

Wide exposure

"We send kids to school in smoke-free environments, when we go to work it's smoke free, but our homes, where we should feel safest, are places where people are exposed to secondhand smoke," he said. "The surgeon general has found there is no risk-free level of contact with secondhand smoke."

The bill would impose a $100 fine for each violation but has no provision for enforcement.

The California Apartment Association, which represents landlords and property managers, is likely to oppose the bill, said spokeswoman Debra Carlton, who cited "the privacy issue and the inability to enforce it." She said the group helped pass a 2011 law that gave landlords the right to make their buildings nonsmoking.

Robert Best, western regional director of the Smoker's Club, which promotes smokers' rights, sees the proposed measure as discrimination against smokers.

"What I do with my body should be my own right," he said. "If I want to smoke, eat greasy food, drink alcohol or soda pop, legislators shouldn't tell me how to live my life."

Some tenants' rights groups also may oppose the bill on the grounds that it discriminates against low-income people who want to smoke but can't afford single-family homes.

But antismoking advocates say the public health issues outweigh those considerations - and that apartment or condo dwellers who want to get away from secondhand smoke are just as vulnerable, especially vulnerable populations such as children, pregnant women and the elderly.

"It's incredibly unfortunate to put the rights of smokers ahead of those who want clean air at home and cannot afford to move," Levine said.

Children of nonsmoking families who live in apartments have a higher level of cotinine - a tobacco byproduct - in their bodies than do children of nonsmoking families who live in detached homes, according to a 2010 study at MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston.

Renters want clean air

A survey of California renters by the American Lung Association showed that 82 percent would prefer to live in a complex where smoking is not allowed anywhere or is confined to a separate section.

Smoke is insidious, said Serena Chen, the group's regional advocacy director in Oakland. "If you know when your neighbor is frying bacon, you're also getting their smoke," she said. "It just seeps right through as air flows between units."

While condo owners can try to get their homeowners associations to ban smoking, passing new bylaws is tough, she said.

"Most HOAs require a 75 percent vote of all owners, not just of the people who show up at the polls," she said. "Condo owners who bought a few years ago are underwater; they can't sell their units," so they're stuck with secondhand smoke.

Regulating people's conduct at home isn't new, Levine said. "Laws project you from neighbors playing music too loudly or burning firewood on Spare the Air days."

In recent years, about 40 California cities, counties and housing authorities have implemented a variety of smoking prohibitions in multiunit buildings. A hefty share are in the Bay Area, with Richmond, Alameda and San Rafael among those with the strictest laws, banning smoking in all multiunit buildings. Levine helped pass the San Rafael law as a councilman there.

Tougher law

But Levine's proposed bill goes further by extending the ban to the whole state and exceeds any laws elsewhere in the country. He admits that getting it passed "will be a heavy lift. We're asking people to change behavior on something that is accepted."

Any change can't come soon enough for the Haning-Escobar family, which started a petition on Change.org to get Concord to address multiunit smoking.

"It's not fair that my children are forced to inhale this dangerous poison toxin," Cynthia Haning said. "They didn't sign up for this. They have a right to grow up in a natural, safe environment."

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